[Gunnel Beckman] appears to have laboured under the popular misconception that anyone with enough common sense can write fiction. The success of her Mia … was due far more to its careful analysis of adolescent sexual dilemma than to nice points of art. Two years later [in The Loneliness of Mia] the heroine has ditched Jan in favour of Martin, a smoothie with a neat line in unbuttoning blouses, and has become an enthusiastic member of a women's group. Superior kitsch though much of the writing is, we are never left in doubt as to the piety of the author's aims and the breadth of her understanding.